Sunday, January 11, 2009

The KHL tried to lift a page out of the NHL's Winter Classic playbook by holding their 2009 All-Star game outside on a narrow and very frigid (3°F) ice rink at Red Square, Moscow. The game while very photogenic fell flat with the small crowd that could not even fill 3000 frosty bleacher seats.

However, the pictures from the All-Star game looked great. Just be happy you weren't there in person.

Players of the teams of Jaromir Jagr and Alexey Yashin play during the KHL (Russia's Open Continental Ice Hockey League) All-Star game on Red square in Moscow on January 10, 2008. The game was played at minus 16 degrees centigrade (3°F). Jagr's team won 7-6. AFP/Getty photo----------------------------

Fueled by Marcel Hossa’s (Dynamo Riga) goal with just under a minute to play, Team Jagr upended Team Yashin 7-6, to win the inaugural Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) All-Star Game today on Red Square in Moscow...

A word of advice, then, to the K.H.L.: outdoor games are great, but you need at least 25,000 people on hand to provide the atmosphere a proper sporting event needs. So enough with games at what amount to public skating rinks — play your all-star game next year at a bandy stadium...

...there's no arguing that seeing St Basil's Cathedral in the background of a hockey game is pretty killer. Kudos to that fishbowl-lens camera in back of the goal, which managed to capture both the action and the scope of the scenery; and the fans were closer to the action than they were in either Ralph Wilson or Wrigley, too...

Even the NHL is facing possible shrinkage. So you have to consider that with the collapse of oil prices and the wacking of the Russian oil oligarchs, the KHL sugar daddies, the league is hurting financially.

Combine that with your point about basic lack of fans and would anyone be surprised if they need to reorganize almost as soon as this season is finished. Like cutting loose those teams that are 4 or more time zones away from Moscow.

The signing of Jagr may mark the highwater mark for the KHL. Odds are he'll be back here soon.

The Ranger Pundit

I'm Mike Savino, the Ranger Pundit. I have been a NY Rangers fan since the 1937 - 1938 season. The first game I saw in person was in 1943 against the Blackhawks. My biggest disappointment was the '49-50 season and our loss to the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals.